The goal of the game
Each player keeps 13 tiles in hand. To win, you need 14 that form four sets and a pair. A set is a run (three consecutive tiles in the same suit) or a triplet (three identical tiles).
Here: three runs, a triplet of red dragons and a pair of 9 of characters. Two hands break this shape: seven pairs (chiitoitsu) and thirteen orphans (kokushi musou).
The golden rule of riichi: a winning hand must contain at least one yaku, a recognised combination. Four sets and a pair are not enough.
Before the first hand
- Four players, who usually start with 25,000 points each, in the form of sticks.
- Each seat has a wind. East is the dealer (oya): they win and pay one and a half times as much as the others. South, West and North follow anticlockwise, which is also the direction of play.
- The 136 tiles, shuffled face down, form a square wall two tiles high. It is opened at a spot chosen by dice.
- The last 14 tiles form the dead wall (wanpai). Nobody draws from it, except after a quad; the dora indicator is turned over on it.
- Each player gets 13 tiles. The dealer starts by drawing the fourteenth.
A turn
On their turn, a player does two things:
- They draw a tile from the wall (tsumo). They now have 14 tiles.
- They discard one, face up, in front of them. Discards are laid in rows of six, in order: everyone can read them.
Then it is the next player’s turn, on their right. Discards are not just a pile: they show what each player is waiting for, and decide furiten.
Calls: chii, pon, kan
A tile that has just been discarded can be taken by another player to complete a set. You call it out loud, then lay the set face up to the right of your hand.
- Chii: complete a run. Only with the discard of the player on your left, who plays just before you.
- Pon: complete a triplet, with anyone’s discard. Pon takes priority over chii.
- Kan: a quad of four identical tiles. It can be called on a discard, added to a pon already laid down, or concealed (all four tiles from your own draws). After a kan, you draw a replacement tile from the dead wall and a new dora indicator is turned over.
Calling saves time, but the hand becomes open. Several yaku require a closed hand (riichi, pinfu, menzen tsumo…), and others lose a han. Beginners often do better keeping their hand closed.
Tenpai and riichi
A hand is tenpai when it only needs one more tile to win. The tiles that complete it are its waits.
With a closed tenpai hand, you can declare riichi: you call “riichi”, place a 1,000-point stick on the table and turn your discard sideways. From then on, you no longer change your hand: you discard every tile you draw, except the one that wins.
In return, riichi is a yaku. It also brings ippatsu (winning within one turn) and ura-dora. It is the simplest way to get a yaku, hence the name of the game.
Beware of furiten: if one of your waits is in your own discards, you can no longer win on someone else’s discard, only by drawing it yourself. Practise finding the waits.
Winning: tsumo or ron
- Tsumo: you win with the tile you just drew. The other three players pay, the dealer more than the others.
- Ron: you win with the tile an opponent just discarded. That player alone pays the whole amount.
You reveal your hand, then score it: yaku, han, dora, fu and points. That is the subject of the next guide. Scoring a hand.
The end of a hand
A hand ends when a player wins, or when the wall runs out with no winner: it is a drawn hand (ryuukyoku). Tenpai players then show their hands, and noten players pay them 3,000 points in total.
If the dealer won, or was tenpai at the draw, they keep the deal (renchan) and place a counter, the honba: each honba adds 300 points to the next win. Otherwise, the deal passes to the player on the right and the winds rotate.
Rounds and the end of the game
When every player has been dealer at least once, the round is over. The standard game (hanchan) has an East round then a South round; the short game (tonpuusen), only the East round. The round wind counts for yaku: a triplet of East during the East round is one.
After the last hand, the player with the most points wins. In clubs and tournaments, uma is often added, a bonus based on placement. Depending on the rules, the game also ends as soon as a player drops below zero.
Remember: draw, discard; a closed hand and a riichi to start with; tsumo if you draw the right tile, ron if someone else throws it.